Dispute Over Mandela Artwork A legal dispute has scared buyers of artwork by Nelson Mandela. "The row has left a bitter taste - raising questions over whether the value of the art might plummet. Questions have also been raised over whether Mandela painted the series or merely endorsed them with his signature." The Star (South Africa) 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 5:50 am
MoMA Notches A Million Visitors The Museum of Modern Art has had 1 million visitors since its new building opened in November. "If the current rate of visits continues, the museum expects to have twice as many visitors this year as the 1.5 million it received annually in the mid-1990s, prior to the revamp." BBC 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 4:16 am
London's Painting Boom Contemporary painting is hot in London right now. "The popularity of painting often coincides with boom periods of art buying - the last time people spoke of painting as being "big", for instance, was during the 1980s. New collectors, in particular, attracted to a buoyant art market, tend to go for paintings. Their ease of display, combined with their historical legacy and their aura of originality and uniqueness, means that paintings are unrivalled not as works of art, but as commodities. Perhaps the best way to view the current status of painting, then, is not so much as an artistic phenomenon, but as an economic one." Financial Times (UK) 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 6:05 pm
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Ex-Concertmaster And Seattle Symphony Dispute Gets Very Public A dispute between the Seattle Symphony and violinist Ilka Talvi, who was the orchestra's concertmaster for 20 years until he was fired by the SSO last summer, has gotten ugly and very public since Talvi started a blog (http://schmaltzuberalles.blogspot.com/) airing criticisms of the orchestra. Talvi's accusations have "led to Internet accusations, police involvement and the threat of legal action." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 9:32 am
Nagano Wows Montreal, Orchestra Contract Mars Great Start "All four of Kent Nagano's first concerts with the Montreal Symphony since he accepted his new job were sold out, and the overwhelming consensus was that the 53-year-old American has what it takes to revive the OSM's artistic fortunes. He launched a new composition prize, charmed the public with interviews and comments from the stage, and helped the orchestra sound at least as good as it did during its glory years with Charles Dutoit." But a bitter contract negotiation with musicians is a black cloud... The Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 5:45 am
Chicago Lyric Opera To Cut Staff Eleven full-time Lyric Opera of Chicago staff members will be out of a job when the company's new fiscal year begins May 1. On Wednesday, Lyric announced administrative staff reductions of 8.4 percent, and William Mason, general director, estimates that the cuts will save $700,000 in 2005-06. Chicago Sun-Times 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 5:19 am
Looking For The Women Conductors Is there a glass ceiling for women conductors? Marin Alsop: "I don't know if it's a glass ceiling, or a concrete or a fabric one, but it's definitely a ceiling. I'm very proud that I'm to become the first woman conductor in history to lead the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (of Amsterdam), but I'm also appalled. It's sort of surprising that one can still be the first woman in so many areas — in the 21st century." Seattle Times 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 4:55 am
Paris Opera: Tristan With A Viola Video The Paris Opera is doing a radical rethink of Wagner'sTristan und Isolde. The company has commissioned video artist Bill Viola to accompany its new production. "On a 30-foot-wide screen above and behind the somberly lighted space peopled by the singers, images that recall some of Mr. Viola's well-known video pieces variously offer literal, metaphorical and even spiritual complements to one of mythology's most famous and tragic love stories. With only the preludes played to a closed curtain, Mr. Viola's multi-toned video poem runs for some 3 hours 40 minutes, a full-length spectacle in its own right." The New York Times 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 4:38 am
MP3 Blogs - A Future In Court? "MP3 bloggers, as they are known, are people who hunt down and post musical gems — usually hard-to-find or niche MP3s — for others to discuss and, for a limited time, download." They're getting an audience, and it's growing. But legally are such blogs going to pass muster? The Guardian (UK) 04/14/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 9:16 pm
La Scala Backer Threatens Funding The businessman who abruptly quit as president of the La Scala orchestra Monday has said he was disgusted with the opera house's unions. "Fedele Confalonieri, chairman of the Mediaset media conglomerate, also said the company might withdraw its financing of the orchestra. In an interview at Mediaset's Rome offices, Mr. Confalonieri said the company had paid at least $700,000 a year for Sunday-morning concert broadcasts on one of its channels." The New York Times 04/14/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 6:31 pm
La Scala As An Opera (Conductors And Villains And Critics, Oh My!) The mess at La Scala with Riccardo Muti is worthy of an opera plot. To wit: "The town square at dusk: Muti, hair shorn, is to be executed. "There is only one way to work with Muti: his way," sings Norman Lebrecht as he knits beside the guillotine. "The relationship between Muti and the orchestra is sick," sings a musician. "Only death can cure this illness." Meli and Confalonieri rush to try to free their hero, but are cut down by scythe-wielding peasants; Mrs Muti throws herself off the battlements; Franco Zeffirelli and Norman Lebrecht sing of their triumph; the chorus of La Scala hum the opening bars of On the Town. Before he is executed, Muti utters the immortal words - "I should have taken that bloody job with the New York Philharmonic." He dies. Curtain." The Guardian (UK) 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 6:10 pm
NJ Symphony Defers Instrument Loan "The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has deferred payment on part of a $9.18 million loan it took out in 2003 to purchase a collection of 30 rare Italian stringed instruments. The state Economic Development Authority yesterday granted the orchestra's request to pay only interest on the loan for nine months, beginning next month. In exchange, the orchestra agreed to a lien on $366,000 of its endowment fund." Newark Star-Ledger 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 5:36 pm
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Claim: Australian Arts Funding Is Inefficient A recent review of Australian orchestras was dumped on for its call for reductions. But the report also took to task some current government funding policies that work contrary to the interests of efficient arts funding. "The existing system is poor public policy because it encourages short-term, knee-jerk reactions rather than considered, long-term planning. It makes proper governance very difficult for the boards of the affected organisations, which find themselves in a constant state of siege. And it means that arts ministers are constantly put in a mendicant position in relation to their cabinet colleagues." The Australian 04/14/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 9:21 pm
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Performers Warned Off Edinburgh Fringe Venue Performers at this summer's Edinburgh Fringe Festival are being warned not to use space in one of the Festival's largest venues after the theatre failed to pay a third of the performers who had worked there. "As the second largest venue in the Cowgate, with a capacity to hold 36 shows, it is a big loss for the Fringe. The Underbelly, which can hold more than 60 shows, is the only larger venue in the area. City festival leaders last night said it was a great blow for the prestigious event and called on new venues to come forward to bridge the gap." The Scotsman 04/14/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 6:41 pm
O'Neill Reinstates Cabaret Conference The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, in Waterford, Conn has decided to reinstate its annual cabaret conference this summer. "The goal of the new and expanded conference is to "keep pushing the envelope" of cabaret and performance, and that this is another way to "keep the O'Neill at the modern edge." Back Stage 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 4:59 pm
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The First Fiction Tour Take a group of emerging writers, put them in a bar and watch the crowds roll in. "Whenever I would see a band in a bar, I'd be amazed that the place would be packed even if the band was terrible. So I started to think, what if we brought book writers and readers together in places other than bookstores. Of course, we didn't invent this -- Allen Ginsburg did this years ago in bars in New York. But we also wanted to take books to where the people are since they weren't coming to bookstores. And we wanted to try to make writers of literature as cool as rock stars." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 9:43 am
Tennessee Williams Poem Discovered A previously unpublished poem by Tennessee Williams, described as having been "written out of absolute, complete despair," has been discovered in his blue test booklet from a college course in 1937... Seattle Times 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 4:57 am
The Problem With Writing Too Much Where many authors struggle to write 1000 words a day, others crank out full novels at a super-human rate. Steven King is so prolific he even invented another persona to take credit for the overflow. A dependable high-performer can help a publisher's bottom line. But can writing too much saturate an author's market? CBC 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 4:27 am
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Video "Cleaning" Riles Artists A growing number of companies are offering "sanitized" versions of music and movies. They remove scenes or language they believe is offensive and sell the cleaned up versions. But what about the integrity of the original work? What about the rights of the artist to control how his or her work is used? "The challenge of ensuring artistic integrity in a digital age will only grow as the free market offers new ways to customize what we view, read and hear. Copyright protections have changed enormously since the introduction of the printing press to England in the late 15th century. They're about to change again." Philadelphia Inquirer 04/14/05
Posted: 04/14/2005 9:47 am
Hitler Film Will Show In Israel An Israeli film distribution company has decided to show a controversial movie about Hitler after polling viewers. "The debate over whether to screen in Israel a movie, which has been criticised for its human portrayal of Hitler, led Lev Cinemas and Shani films, who had purchased the local rights, to conduct test screenings on members of the Lev Cinema subscribers' club. The decision to poll moviegoers was taken in order not to offend Holocaust survivors and others who might find the film distasteful." Sydney Morning Herald 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 5:46 pm
Will Indecency Law Pass Congress? Proposed indecency legislation that includes heavy fines against performers might pass in Congress. "No one wants to be in a position of being in favor of indecency. But very few [in Congress] want to risk trying to state their position in 30-second TV ads -- trying to explain the First Amendment and self-censorship and that there are better ways of protecting kids with V-chips and software. It would take a lot of money to reply." Back Stage 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 4:42 pm
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English National Ballet On the Brink The English National Ballet is on the verge of bankruptcy and needs emergency cash to survive. But "for the past 15 years, ENB has been the least settled of the nation's three great ballet companies, not much loved by critics, and torn between its board's desire for box office populism and the higher aspirations of an alarmingly brisk turnover of artistic directors." Is giving ENB more money just throwing it away? The Telegraph (UK) 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 6:19 pm
Proving Martha Graham There are problems with the current offering of the Martha Graham Company. But "to criticize certain aspects of its current season is not to dismiss the company’s achievement. It’s proved itself. Now we must hope that as it continues to expand its repertory—not with the specious products of Graham’s later years but with major works like Letter to the World and even Clytemnestra—it will grow even stronger and surer of itself. Major choreographers like Doris Humphrey who didn’t leave behind settled institutions can slip away from us. That mustn’t happen to Martha Graham—and it won’t, if the Martha Graham Dance Company holds its course." New York Observer 04/13/05
Posted: 04/13/2005 5:26 pm
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